Alone Together
by Sunshine170
Summary: We all get really good at pretending that the loneliness isn't there and then something comes along to remind us.
1. Chapter 1

_"You should have your own theme track you know that…"_ he'd told her once noodling on the piano keys idly in the lab one late night after a case when she was filling out an endless pile of paperwork, belting out vague and ominous tones ambling towards something that would play nicely in the background of some grand quest scene in a movie.

A lifetime and a timeline ago, when there was just that one universe of hers and Peter Bishop had not been at the centre of it.

Though he'd begun to inch pretty close to it.

She'd laughed at that and met his sardonic grin with a curve of her own lips

"Why don't you write me one then?" She'd told him wryly before turning her attention back to the report she was writing.

He hadn't said anything but had returned her smile in kind and then gone back to fiddling with that worn out instrument that seemed to always, at least in her eyes, come alive at his touch.

"You should really go home and get some rest. You've had a long day." She'd said, noticing the dark circles under his eyes and the tired lines that were etched on his face.

"And leave you all by yourself in the Bishop house of horrors while you drudge through your paperwork. What kind of gentleman would do that to a lady?" He'd cocked an eyebrow at her, lips pursing in mock disapproval. "I may not be authorized to help you with any of that stuff, but I can certainly keep you company while you do your bit towards the denudation of our precious forest cover can't I?"

"I'll be fine. I am used to being alone." She'd said absentmindedly, not really pondering her words until she'd said them out loud, and regretting them almost in the next minute.

"Doesn't mean you have to be lonely all the time." He'd said looking up from the piano briefly at her and then shrugged in the next second, acting as if he hadn't recognized the deeper significance of her words...or his for that matter.

"And I could certainly use some company that didn't consist of my father high on smack and possibly exercising the clothing optional clause that comes with being slightly off up there." He'd rolled his eyes a little too emphatically. "Trust me; I am doing myself a favor by not going home just yet."

And then he'd gone back to playing, something by Gershwin that she recognized from having heard in the living room of her parents a long time ago.

They had sat in very agreeable silence for the next two hours, she finishing up her work while he played one tune after another.

Doing paperwork was not really something she had ever enjoyed, but there was something about the mundane task that felt soothing….almost pleasurable when it was done to lilting Jazz notes in a basement lab with him.

A week later, she'd found a cd on her desk along with a piece of sheet music.

_Olivia's Theme._ It was titled in neat handwriting. There was nothing else, no note, no explanation.

She wasn't a sentimental woman but she had had a sudden urge to cry when she saw the musical notations in black and white, incomprehensible to her unlearned eyes but still brimming with a sincerity that had touched her much too deeply than anything in a long time had.

She had gone home and listened to it. Three minutes and fifteen seconds of sheer brilliance and beauty, a remarkable blend of strength and delicacy in tone, a haunting descant that uplifted her spirit and left her heart heavy in the same vein.

It was like he had drawn every note from her very soul to write a melody that reflected her.

It had scared her that he could know her so intimately without even being intimate with her and yet she realized she had come to expect it from him. She had become comfortable with his explicit and subtle ways of looking out for her, for caring for her, letting her know she was important to him.

It was the first time she had realized that she felt the loneliness so much less when she was around him. That she had unknowingly come to rely on him to dissipate that solitude that she had made herself so comfortable with.

Somewhere in the short while that Peter had come into her life, he had made her dislike being on her own all the time. Made her want to hear something besides her own thoughts and voice… made her want his presence around her.

The realization put her guard up. She knew just how dangerous unlearning her loneliness could be.

Sooner or later everybody left and if you let them in too close, they left with a part of you.

And she really didn't have all that left to part with.

* * *

Which is why when he disappeared from her life after coming to know the truth of his existence, she had felt something inside her disappear along with him.

She was alone once again and it was unbearable …the feeling

She never wanted to feel like that again.

Which is why she had crossed universes to bring him back, pushed aside every qualm in her mind and heart and told him that he belonged with her.

And held on to him with everything she had when she wasn't even sure of who she was anymore.

She hadn't even cared that he was just a figment of her imagination, as long as he was around to make her feel like she wasn't all alone, that she belonged.

Which is what she had felt like when she had opened her eyes in the hospital that day to find him by her side, looking strangely disconsolate and apologetic but completely real, his hands finding hers and his lips pressing against her forehead, finding contentment she didn't even know she was lacking in her life.

But he had slipped through her grasp once again, a comedy of errors that you could laugh or weep over depending on whether you chose to take into account the sheer absurdity of the events that had transpired or the soul crushing tragedy.

Her life had become a macabre version of A Midsummer's Night Dream and the cruelest joke was that she hadn't even been the leading lady of her own existence, wallowing in oblivion off stage while a better version of herself stole her spotlight and her hero.

She had welcomed the loneliness back into her life then, embraced it whole heartedly because as dismal as it was, it took the sting away from the pain of betrayal, just a little bit.

But she hadn't counted on just how hard it was really. The prospect of a romantic relationship lost to her as it had seemed that time, and her earlier easy partnership with him now fraught with spoken and unspoken tensions.

She missed him to distraction despite how hard spending five seconds alone with him was proving to be.

In true Peter fashion, he had sensed her unease around him and after a few sincere efforts at trying to restore normalcy had simply withdrawn from her, reducing his interactions with her to purely those that were functional and eliminating the wisecracks completely from his repertoire, never hovering around her a second more than required or insisting on tagging along when she needed to be in the field and generally actively avoiding any situation that put them in proximity by themselves.

He even stopped bringing her coffee after that night.

Olivia knew his reasons for pulling away were to do with his supposition that she didn't want to be around him but it had made her angry nonetheless.

Why wouldn't he fight for her, for what they had? Was she not even worth that much effort to him?

If there's anything she couldn't forgive that woman for it was not for taking away what should have been hers but for having nearly destroyed what she had built with him.

In the end the determination to save their relationship had come naturally, like the last piece of a puzzle that fell into place.

She needed him too much to be without him.

As she lay beside him that night, foreheads touching and bodies clinging to each other in his creaky twin bed that wasn't really built for two, under warm linen sheets that carried his indelible scent, she watched him watch her, his fingers counting the freckles on her right breast, eyes lingering on each one of them.

"What are you thinking?" She had asked, her hand coming to join his.

"That maybe we shouldn't have done this." He had said softly, his voice choked and his gaze meeting hers with an expression of unhindered yearning. "If you changed your mind tomorrow… I don't think….Olivia… Are you sure about this?"

She smiled and moved further into his embrace, resting her head against his chest, listening to the reassuring sound of his heartbeat.

"I am not changing my mind tomorrow or the day after or for the rest of my life for that matter." She had looked at him a little hesitant. "So the real question I guess is…. are you sure about this? I mean do you still want me?"

He had smirked, turning her chin up towards him. "Of course I want you, you beautiful idiot. I want you very very much. That's kind of the whole point really."

"Be careful what you wish for…sweetheart." She had echoed his own words to him, closing her eyes and giving into sleep, confident in the knowledge that he would still be there when she woke up.

She would never be alone again.

* * *

_We all get really good at pretending that the loneliness isn't there and then something comes along to remind us. _

The inexplicable hole in her heart always feels twice as large when she's around that man. The man who claims to be Walter's son from another timeline and knows things about all of them.

The man who looks at her like he knows her better than anyone else. Even after he accepts that she is not who he thinks she is, he still knows too much and acts with too much familiarity with her.

The way he seems to know how she takes her coffee without asking and refills her cup every two hours without her even realizing, or how he casually picks out the two yellow M &M s before sharing a handful with her.

That in some other reality, someone had known her so well to show her these little considerations makes her feel aware of just what she was missing in her own present.

The roots of her unexplainable sadness, that single constant to her ever variant life are beginning to point more and more towards Peter Bishop and it confuses her.

She feels simultaneously less alone and lonelier than ever when she's with him if such a thing were possible.

She's getting dangerously used to his presence and she knows she ought to stop.

Because he wasn't here to stay and he certainly wasn't hers to keep.

She sees it in the way he talks about his Olivia, the one who did get to keep him. The one he has found his home with.

She doesn't really realize what she's doing later that evening, as her fingers dial the number for Damiano's and she rattles off an order without having any idea of what was on the menu. She doesn't pause to consider why she's pulling out two instead of one wine glass or why she puts Texas Chainsaw Massacre on her Netflix instant queue.

It's only when Peter pulls back from her kiss with a look of utter confusion on his face that she realizes what she has been doing.

And as she sits through his worried interrogation and brushes off his concern, trying to salvage what's left of her poise after the embarrassing incident, she can't help thinking how wonderful it had been that past hour she was living someone else's life. When she had dressed in that black sweater that she knew he liked because of its soft fabric, or when she had put on that little bit of lip gloss and had looked in the mirror happily, eyes shining with anticipation at the thought of seeing him and being with him.

For a brief while she had known what it was to exist without that damn hole in her heart, that vacuum at the core of her being that she has lived with for time immemorial.

It had been beautiful.

* * *

It's the feeling she has when the memories begin to overwrite hers.

His, hers, theirs… it doesn't matter. They tease at her consciousness, ripping open the divides between real and imaginary. They're repairing the abysses in her foundation, bringing back to her something that was lost, that she has felt so hollow without for so long.

They're bringing him back to her and she can't think how that could possibly be a bad thing. Why everyone including him seems to want to deny her this… her happiness, her essentiality.

She's only just found her sense of equilibrium and he wastes no time in making the earth under her feet crumble.

It could only happen to her she muses ….that he's willing to run away from her just so he could find his way back to her.

Like a horse with blinders on, he's searching for something that he's already found if he only cared to look away from the path he's on.

That she has to compete against herself not once but twice for his obstinate and unyielding love for her…sometimes she thinks she'd like to believe in a God just so she can congratulate him on his ingenious sense of humor.

She does win in the end …in the race for his heart, beating every other iteration of herself... its she who always wins because she's never learnt to lose him and let him go.

There may be multiple hers but there is only one Peter and he belongs with her.

* * *

For years after she never feels the loneliness ever again. She thrives instead in the togetherness that she shares with him, in the family they build together.

Even when everything around them falls apart and the life they created together crumbles in a desiccated heap, and she's forced to part with the only person who means just as much to her as he does.

She doesn't feel alone… ever.

She forgets that she had once ever felt that way till now, till this moment.

"Why can't we do this together?" She asks him, trying not to show how scared she is. She knows she needs to be brave but this is killing her.

Not knowing that she needs to do this but the fact that she has do this on her own.

"It's too big a risk Liv. One of us has to make it out if we are ever going to have a chance." He tells her, his tone unconvincing of his words. "It has to be this way."

" But what if I never find you again?" she asks unashamed of the desperate nature of her question, as she clutches at his jacket, trying not to let the tears win the battle against her willpower.

"That's something I am not really worried about, trust me." He tells her, flashing her his trademark grin that she has seen so little of in the past few months, even as he's fighting tears himself.

"You always find me no matter what Olivia." He tells her, pulling her close and kissing her what seems like an eternity.

"You always find me in the end." He whispers against her lips.

They break apart and she nods silently as he places the canister on the floor of the stage of the Orpheum where so many years ago she had defied space and time and reality to bring him back.

"Peter… I love you." She tells him, willing her heart to not cease to function as he begins to step away from her.

He nods, eyes filling with inevitable tears as he retreats farther and farther. He doesn't say it back because she knows those words are no better than a goodbye as far as he's concerned and he wasn't ever going to say goodbye to her.

It's not his style really.

He activates the switch.

"I'll see you again…soon. I promise." He tells her instead, shards of hope scattered in the brokenness of his voice that she gathers and holds onto in her mind.

She wants to close her eyes but thinks better of it, leaving them wide open and continues to look at him as he grows distant and hazy as the fumes around her grow thicker.

Her last thought that will remain with her in stasis is of him, of them together again…

_You belong with me_… she tells herself as the amber solidifies around her.


	2. Chapter 2

There is much to be admired about Olivia...

Tenacity, resourcefulness, a certain disregard for the rules and most importantly an unparalleled mettle, the likes of which he really hasn't seen ever.

And he's seen a lot.

Her willingness to go to any lengths to do the right thing is astonishing.

Peter likes all that about her.

But there's also a shadow of sadness that never seems to quite leave her side and it's unsettling to him.

In the beginning he thinks it has something to do with John's death and betrayal. It's understandable. Being let down by the person you love and depend on is not something that is easy to accept, even for someone as strong as her.

His mother had certainly struggled with it and she didn't have even half of Olivia's resolve. He had seen the same sadness in her for as long as he could remember and it had only become so much more pronounced after Walter's incarceration. The way she would look so heartbroken at times, when she brushed the hair of his forehead and told him how much she loved him. She would try and be strong for him, but he knew how much it cost her to do that.

The day they moved out of their nice house in Cambridge to that significantly smaller apartment in Allston, he had caught her crying for the first time.

It had made him feel very small and helpless.

He knew she was crying for him, because she thought she had failed him by being unable to provide for him adequately.

The next day at breakfast, he had chattered nonstop about how much he loved this new place and how completely cool it was to live in an apartment in the city instead of a boring house in the suburbs.

And she had laughed and it was gratifying for those brief few minutes when that sadness around her seemed to disappear.

The witticisms became part of his repertoire when he realized that he could do that for her, make her laugh and forget for a brief while whatever unknown sorrow she was dealing with.

He likes it when he can make Olivia smile or shake her head in amusement at his sarcastic remarks.

But just like with his mother, it's only temporary and the shadow always returns to haunt her.

He doesn't know what makes her that way till she tells him about her stepfather, something he definitely cannot fix with a joke.

Or ten for that matter.

She's too used to doing everything alone, too driven by her desperation to right every wrong she encounters. It makes her unusually strong. But it also makes her lonely.

Even though she doesn't see it.

* * *

Peter realizes they have something in common after all. He attracts people wherever he goes, cultivates them, uses them, manipulates them for his ends.

But in the end he has only had himself to depend upon because he never allows himself to get close to anybody.

To need anybody in a way that would make life impossible without them.

It's a lesson he'd learnt after his mother's death. He had been inconsolable when he'd come to know of her passing. That she had taken her own life…

He knows deep down it had something to do with him. It always had to do with him, her sadness.

And he never wants to hurt someone that way again

…or be hurt himself for that matter.

But he feels like he wants to be there for Olivia, in whatever little way she'll let him.

It's unexpected. He's never felt that way for anyone.

She's undeniably beautiful and possibly the most interesting woman he's ever met but everything about her screams at him to stay away.

And yet he feels drawn to her, despite his resistance.

Its more than attraction, it's also the fact that he thinks of her as a friend. They have fallen into a partnership of sorts and looking out for her has already become second nature to him.

It's not easy, but he takes care of her in the smallest of ways he can, because he feels the need to.

It's not that he wants her to take notice of him. He certainly doesn't entertain any notions that she could be interested in him.

She's much too level headed to fall for a wildcard like him.

But that night at Massive Dynamic, he throws caution to the wind and gives into something that has been building inside him for too long because he sees it in her eyes too.

It's a good thing that they don't kiss because he knows the inevitable fallout of such actions.

Things would get awkward and messy and possibly irreparable…fast.

* * *

It would never work between them he realizes when he's about to leave Boston and considers telling her how he feels before her.

His father's actions make it impossible to stay, but what he feels for her makes it just as difficult to leave.

Love is too strong a word. It comes with expectations and promises.

Both of which he has a terrible record on meeting, so in the end he does what he knows best… he runs.

He's too much of a screw up to be good enough for her anyway and she really deserves much better. He wants her to be happy, to find someone who can lift the weight of her shoulders, not add to them.

But as always she surprises him. She crosses a universe to find him and tells him what he's never heard from anyone before.

She tells him that he belongs with her.

For a moment he's too dazed, too taken aback…too incapable of saying or doing anything.

But when her lips find his, it's like finding home.

Like his life's tumultuous journey has led him to his final destination and it's her.

Olivia doesn't need anything or anybody.

But she needs him… and he understands that.

It's as simple as that.

* * *

When they return the shadow no longer lurks around her and he's conceited enough to think that he's responsible for making it go away.

Little does he realize he'd be the one responsible for strengthening its presence.

He has done what he had so badly wanted to avoid, hurt her in the most unconscionable way, betrayed her trust and destroyed the most meaningful relationship he's had with anyone in a long time.

He tries to make it better between them, tries to regain what they had if not what they could have had, but gives up pretty soon. How can he possibly hope for anything to go back to the way it was when his mere presence seems to distress her so much.

It's impossible to make the nightmare go away and for a while Peter thinks of leaving, of simply running away to a place where he didn't have to see her heartbroken face or add to her pain.

But turns out once you have an idea of what home is supposed to feel like, it becomes really hard to leave it behind.

And some part of him is convinced that staying here… no matter how bad things have gotten is infinitely better than leaving.

Some part of him is convinced that even if she doesn't want him, she still needs him.

So he stays, for Walter, for saving the world…and for her.

* * *

She thinks she's incapable of being vulnerable, of letting him back into her life, of giving them a chance to be happy together.

He wants to tell her she's wrong. That someone who's capable of feeling as much as she does cannot shut herself off from love. But he lets it go thinking maybe they've lost their chance after all. Some things are just not meant to be.

They're not one of them though and he knows that because in the end she does come back to him.

He doesn't know what he did to get that lucky. But he's not going to question the happiness coming his way. He's just incredibly thankful.

Every time he wakes up to her in the morning or takes her hand as they walk down the hallway, or shares a secret smile with her in the midst of others. He's thankful that she managed to get past the hurt and open herself to the possibility of them.

The world around them crumbles and the universe dithers on its axis, but he never feels more at peace with himself.

Even when he walks towards the certain death that is the machine, he does it knowing he's found something with her that has made this lifetime already worth everything it could be.

He looks at her before he steps into the machine and can see her fear clear as day.

But he doesn't see the shadow. It doesn't exist anymore.

If he's saved her from the sadness, he knows he can save the world too.

* * *

She doesn't remember him.

She doesn't remember them, what they had.

She's the same person he knew except she doesn't know him. She looks at him like she's almost afraid of him.

It's strange because nothing makes her afraid.

He convinces himself he's somewhere else, that he needs to return to where he came from. To the place where his father looked at him with love and not self-punishment and where the woman he loved loves him back.

Every day he gets more scared that he has lost them for good. That he won't be able to wake up from this nightmare where no one knows him.

He remembers Olivia once telling him about feeling like Rip Van Winkle after he woken up.

Everything's different… but she still remains the same. It makes it really hard to not get sucked in when he finds himself stealing a look at her now and them and seeing everything just as he remembers.

Except there's nothing in her eyes when she looks back at him, save the detached coldness.

She does warm up to him eventually and he's glad for that because he'd have any version of Olivia finding him agreeable rather than a nuisance.

But when she comes to his house talking about things that she shouldn't be knowing, claiming knowledge of a life they had shared together and looks at him with a disconcerting familiarity, Peter finds himself angry of all things.

He doesn't need this right now, this confusion….this added complication. Not when he's convinced Walter to help him return. Not when he's so close to having everything that he's lost.

It doesn't help the way she seems to accept this overwriting of her self with startling calmness and positivity. That she seems too explicitly happy about having these feelings for him.

And every time he looks into her eyes he can see it there. That need for him that had called out to him on the first day they had met in Iraq.

It's too tempting and he fights it with everything he has because he won't allow himself to make that same mistake again.

But turns out he's been simply getting in his way all that time, because she is his Olivia after all.

That night, when she's asleep in his arms, he simply stares at her for an eternity trying to figure out if he'll ever make sense of the twisted ways in which they keep losing and finding each other.

He is a very smart guy but this… them… he just does not get.

She flew to a warzone to find him once… and she'd been in love with someone else at the time. So it's natural that she would do everything in her power to find Peter when he's the one she's in love with. A timeline here, a universe there… these are minor obstacles as far as she is concerned.

Olivia is her own force of nature and nature is seldom denied.

He doesn't know what he did to deserve a love that was so boundless in its depth, so perseverant in its quest for completion. He's fairly certain he didn't deserve it to begin with.

But he's never going to let it slip through his hands again.

To know her is to know happiness, to know that there are things beyond heaven and earth, beyond reality and perception.

To know her it to ultimately know bliss.

He's happy with stolen kisses in the lab and the odd home cooked dinner when they can manage the time to make it. For a glass of wine and Italian takeout and cuddling up on the couch to garden variety cinematic horror experience on Fridays and eventually making out in favor of the latter.

He's happy when they can go home together at the end of the night and find endless salvation in each other's bodies and wake up in the mornings to mugs of French Roast in bed and flip through newspapers and have utterly normal conversations about getting a house together.

Its perfection and truth be told he doesn't want any more than that. It would be asking too much and they have tempted fate an awful lot as it is. He's pleasantly surprised when she casually asks him about a nursery…but doesn't think much of it.

He knows it's simply a thought she's voicing when she asks him that... one that any normal person their age would have considered quite a bit. And he's more than willing to consider it with her even though he knows as well as she does that it's a long shot.

And after he comes so close to losing her for good, Peter can't bring himself to care about anything other than the fact that she's alive and breathing.

But for once in this fractured fairytale that is their life, there is more to look forward to than just surviving till the next day.

There is hope for a future… their future and he sees it in the eyes of his baby girl when he holds her in his arms for the first time.

It's astonishing that after everything, they could find their way to something so beautiful and pure, that he could be responsible for the creation of something so perfect.

He has a family now, a home with her, with them.

He has saved worlds before and he knows he will destroy them just as easily if someone should try and take this from him again.

But he'd never counted on his own self-destructive agenda to be the thing that will take away everything from him.

He is forced to splinter his family by his own design and scatter them in pieces and when Olivia looks at him, pleading wordlessly to not be asked to do this alone, he disregards it.

He will not be weak. He can't afford to be.

"Why can't we do this together?" She asks him and he almost caves.

Why indeed? They've done everything together, taken every step together, fought every battle together.

Why should they do anything differently now?

"It's too big a risk Liv. One of us has to make it out if we are ever going to have a chance." He tells her instead, his tone unconvincing of his words.

"It has to be this way."

"But what if I never find you again?" she asks him a little too desperately, clutching at his jacket, trying not to let the tears win the battle against her willpower.

And in the moment the hesitation is gone. "That's something I am not really worried about, trust me." He tells her almost smiling, even though the tears are prickling at his eyelids.

"You always find me no matter what Olivia." He tells her, pulling her close and kissing her what seems like an eternity when there's nothing but the feel of her lips against his.

No losses that wrench at the heart, no burdens to bear, no enemies to fight.

They had lost their past once, their present decimated, they may never make it to the future. But this….his home, his foundation, his sanctuary.

It's not in the materiality of walls and things inside those walls. It's not in the seemingly binding nature of words they had once exchanged in City Hall, or the rituals of life and living they built over ten years, or the hopes they had nurtured for tomorrow.

It's in her.

"You always find me in the end." He whispers against her lips.

Other things matter and yet they don't.

They break apart and she nods silently as he places the canister on the floor of the stage of the Orpheum where so many years ago she had defied space and time and reality to bring him back.

"Peter… I love you." She tells him and he wishes she wouldn't say that. because it makes everything that much harder.

He nods, eyes filling with inevitable tears as he retreats farther and farther. He doesn't say it back because she already knows those words are no better than a goodbye as far as he's concerned and he wasn't ever going to say goodbye to her.

It's not his style really.

He activates the switch.

"I'll see you again…soon. I promise." He tells her instead, trying to keep alive some hope in the brokenness of his voice.

She doesn't close her eyes, stubbornly continuing to stare at him as he sees her form blur and grow hazy in the fumes thickening around her and he can't break away from her gaze no matter how much it kills him to see her go from a living breathing person to a frozen fossil.

_I belong with you…_ he tells her as the amber solidifies around her.


	3. Chapter 3

That night… there's a numbness in her that won't go away…

All sensation seems lost to her… touch, smell, sound, sight.

She might be still frozen in amber, except a faint self-awareness tells her that she isn't.

She doesn't know what…how to feel, she doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know anything at all.

She has collapsed twice already in the few hours since she's been freed from her self-inflicted prison… from that captivity where time stood still and she had stood still with it.

Strong arms break her fall both time, a familiar voice calling out her name, holding her, calloused palms stroking her face.

She's being lifted into those arms and carried to this room, deposited gently onto a lumpy bed.

"What's wrong dad?" A scared voice travels through the fog to reach her ears.

"It's nothing honey… she'll be okay."

"But she's…."

"She'll be fine… just let me take care of her okay?"

She's lost to sleep then…

* * *

Even when she awakens a few hours later, she feels like she's asleep, unshaken and unresponsive.

She lies on the bed, staring into the ceiling above her… wiling to experience, to know, to understand.

But nothing will yield itself to her.

Something alerts her to his presence close to her. Something that has always had an existence independent of her sensory perception when it comes to him.

"Liv…" He takes her name. A name that has carried with it the weight of his feeling since when they first met, changes connotation with his pulse, a million different meanings, like the million different ways he feels about her, towards her.

Tonight her name wears the shade of his concern, echoes with the sound of his longing and screams with a quiet desperation.

His face hovers over her, marring her view of the ceiling, pale blue depths trying to catch the attention of her placid greens.

"Liv…say something please." He begs her.

She lies still, trying to break through the invisible amber that still surrounds her, trying to grant him his wish.

But she's trapped in the tomb of her own body.

He keeps looking at her for a sign, but she simply stares through him and only when he turns away from her in defeat does something click in her.

It's still not enough… but it does prompt a slight movement, a minute caress of her hand against his.

It's enough to make him look back at her, meet her gaze which now finally rests on him rather than through him.

Her soul is crying out for help, even though she can't seem to verbalize or act on anything, or even recognize her own state of distress. Her eyes are pleading with him to understand a need she doesn't know.

_Fix me… _Her eyes tell him.

_Bring me back to life…_

She can fight for this world, but she can't fight for herself, not tonight. Tonight she needs rescuing.

Tonight she's Snow White… cursed to spend eternity in slumber, even if her body pretends to be awake.

She needs her prince charming to break the spell, to make her alive again.

She literally needs the kiss of true love.

Maybe he knows that, recognizes that because he bends down to kiss her. Undeterred by her lack of response, his lips push against hers gently, nudging them open, deepening for just a moment before pulling back.

He's moving his lips to her cheek now, traversing an upwards path to her eyelids , her temple, her forehead, through her hair.

Through it all she remains motionless, not resisting or reacting.

"Olivia, look at me… just look at me." He whispers, his lips breaking away to meet her gaze once again.

His eyes are a roadmap to the journey they're going to take, they speak volumes without a single word. He's shifting position now, bending down to kiss her in the nook of her neck. His hands have joined his lips to aid his mission as he reaches out for her fingers running over her clothes, so light in their touch.

He pulls her up, so she's sitting from the waist above and clasps her hands in his, bringing them to rest on his chest, before he pulls her into an embrace, pulling her lips into a slightly more demanding kiss.

Her own lips are silently acquiescent. They still don't kiss back, but they part willingly enough when he pushes into her, nibbles at her bottom lip before pulling away once again.

"Let me know if you want me to stop okay. Anytime…" He whispers in her ear as his fingers skim the edge of her grey tank before reaching under and pushing the fabric upwards, slipping it over her head and pulling it away.

Like a child learning from repetition, she blinks before bringing her hands to his chest again. Settling the palms against his shirt, letting them stay there.

She follows his movements with her eyes, watches his hands reaching for her back now, unhooking her bra, sliding the straps down her shoulders, peeling it off her person.

She's open to his gaze now and he doesn't hold anything back as he stares, running his eyes over her body like he was seeing it for the first time. Tentatively he brings his hand to the slender curve of her neck, trailing down knowingly to her chest, to the slope of her breast.

Her breath hitches as she registers the contact, the sensation causing a physical reaction that didn't need any context, just the mere act of stimulation.

Their eyes meet at that and he smiles. She closes her eyes as his touch becomes more…as his palms gently cup and caress the fullness of her breasts. She sighs and bites her lip helplessly as his mouth closes upon her nipple, a moan escaping her throat, as she involuntarily pushes against his embrace.

Something is beginning to unravel within her as she realizes what's happening.

Not all memory is cerebral; there are those reminiscences that reside in the flesh too. It's how skin recognizes skin, remembers touch… exquisite pleasure inducing touch that soothes every physical and emotional pain that has ever been inflicted upon her.

His words are not capable of reaching her tonight… but this, this she can respond to without effort or thought….. like breathing.

They have it wrong, people who think sex changes things, makes everything more complicated.

Because it's not sex that asks too much of her, to think, to remember, to confront. It only asks her to be there.

And right now it's all she can do. Be there as his hands and lips move in familiar patterns across her body, a passive vessel for his skillful affections that are coaxing her body out of its numbness even if he can't get to her mind or her heart just yet.

Sex with him is a potent remedy… like medicine it heals and makes things better. Makes her better.

Thirty years ago all there was to them was a woman with a broken heart and a man who cared enough to want to help her, in whatever way he could.

Whatever else they had meant to each other since…. partner, friend, lover, husband, wife, their original roles remain fundamentally unchanged.

Tonight they're those people again. If it's their curse to have to wake up from the present into the future, then they'll simply have to regress to the past to find their sanity, to find their whole again.

After all these years she's still broken hearted and he still cares enough to want to help her… any way he can.

If she had known how effective his current method of help could be, she would have dragged him between her legs the night John had died and made him stay there forever…

…or at least until nothing hurt anymore, whichever came first.

It might have been wrong then… might being the operational word because really… there was nothing about her and Peter, even in their lowest, most fucked up moments that had ever seemed wrong to her.

But even without the hypotheticals running through her head she knows that this, what he was doing was right because it's real.

Whatever she has woken up to after twenty years… it's not. But him, with his blue eyes and his stubble and the tiny scar under his chin that was still healing from when he suffered a fall a few days before they were ambered, he's the only thing that didn't change, didn't transform, didn't become something else.

He's real…and he's with her….like always.

The two of them were eternal misfits, always finding themselves in times and spaces they weren't meant to occupy, in universes they had been abducted into, timelines they had been written out of, futures they should have aged into rather than being rudely woken up into.

It's only natural they would belong with each other when they couldn't belong anywhere else.

She fists her hands into his shirt a little insistently, as he continues to make her heady and light headed with his double edged assault on her breasts, now moving down to her midriff, placing greedy and giving kisses on her flat belly. She's still too tame and compliant in the way she lays there in his embrace, but even the smallest of actions on her part is enough for him to make him look up.

"What is it?" He asks, looking up at her slightly flushed, desire having colored his eyes a deeper, more opaque blue.

"Liv…"

She looks at her hands clutching at his shirt, and then looks at him and he nods, swallowing audibly as he releases his hold on her waist to unbutton his shirt brusquely.

She doesn't help him, watching as if transfixed by the simple action, but she does reach out gingerly to slide his shirt from his shoulders when he's done. He shrugs the rest of the garment off, pushing them both backwards onto the bed. The length of his body now moving against her, his arousal making its presence known heightening her own, she feels a little more alive, a little more flesh and blood.

A little less like a limp ragdoll…

He has his own special place in the history of her body, a narrative that he has written into her very bones over years with his kisses and his ministrations and his lovemaking. Every part of her is known to him like the lyrics of an old song and he's letting her be privy to that knowledge right now, allowing sensations to have conversations with one another where words are failing so badly.

The men she had given her heart and her body to before him, the straight laced men of law she managed to always get herself entangled with, they had never seen her the way this volatile and capricious con-man had , known her the way he had.

They had been passionate and kind and fulfilling… but Peter… being loved by him was to know something beyond just the physical pleasure of sex.

He was skilled…. exceptional at the act in question, just like he was exceptional at everything else. Like a pliant and well-tuned musical instrument, he could play her body with finesse, without missing a single note or going off key.

But there was more than technique or talent that made him extraordinary in bed. Of all her lovers, he had been the gentlest. Even while he could unlock the lowest depths of pure and raw pleasure in her and possess her with his fervor, he had been excruciatingly considerate of her needs, needs that were never just physical at their roots, handling her with a delicacy and a reverence that she had never expected, never even knew she wanted.

She had seen it the first time they had made love, felt it in the way his hands had touched and his lips had moved, the tender words of assurance he had mumbled against her hair as he held her still afterwards when she lay trembling in his arms, feeling more overwhelmed and unsteady than she had ever felt.

It had been the scariest thing she had ever done, to give herself to him, make herself available for his physical appraisal knowing that another version of herself had been there before. But once the fear had passed…. It was beautiful to be with him that way, easier than anything else in their lives.

Every one of those beautiful memories from behind closed doors and twisted linen sheets now courses through her as he devotes himself to making her remember.

The night they had unwittingly conceived their daughter… she had felt it, felt something change within her she had approached her moment of climax in his arms. Something that kept her up for hours after he had fallen asleep besides her, cradling her in a close embrace, filled her with an undulating happiness and bliss even if she didn't really know why she felt the way she did.

She had watched the dying embers of the fireplace in their room in that resort in Vermont and thought that she would remember this night forever, remember this contentment.

He had been so tender with her in the months that followed, like she was made of porcelain… almost afraid to touch with anything more than the lightest of hands, the softest of caresses. It had almost made her laugh, given the fact that all she had wanted to do was fuck him six ways to Sunday.

One night she finally flipped them over, straddled and kissed him soundly, hormonal and needy and more than a little impatient with his restrained affections by this point, telling him not to be an idiot. If her pregnant body could handle jumping out of a helicopter onto a ship in the middle of an ocean, it could certainly handle sex with him without breaking into pieces like he seemed to think it would.

He had smirked at that, nuzzling her neck, whispering into her ears….

_"You're going to be somebody's mother soon you know. You can't be acting like such a wanton temptress." _

_"Will you just shut up and do this already Bishop?" _

His hands slide down to her jeans, unbuttoning them and pulling them off with her panties in a single, smooth move. His own jeans are the next to go, followed by his boxers.

He's looking at her again now with pure unadulterated longing and even though she may not be mirroring his expression, he's aware that the feeling is mutual, his fingers tracing the inside of her thigh as her legs fall wide open without prompting , his hand move upwards to where the need was building up in her with urgency.

She is already so ready, so wanting….wetness pooling at her core as his fingers makes contact with her folds. She feels like she's on fire, aflame with desire and more, as he places himself at her entrance.

Everything inside her is fighting for liberation, knocking incessantly at a door that's coming loose at the hinges. She needs this more than anything… more than oxygen.

But he's not giving her what she needs, hovering above her, a sheen of sweat covering him, poised, tight, like an arrow ready to be released from its bow.

She looks at him with confusion, wanting to know why he had halted, why he wouldn't follow through on his wordless promise.

His eyes meet hers begging a question, permission…consent.

She still can't speak or verbalize… but she manages to nod purposefully, giving him the sign that she knows he would never move forward without.

Not if their lives depended on it. And right now hers really does…

He's pushing into her the next instant without any more hesitation and for a second it's almost too much. The feeling of him inside her, it's too much a reminder of the fact that she was really alive and breathing.

That this nightmare she had been transported to was real.

She gasps as the first crack in her dam appears; losing the ability to breathe for a few seconds before regaining her cadence, pleasure overriding the pain of feeling.

He's thrusting into her with a familiar rhythm and she wraps her legs around him, pulling him impossibly closer, holding onto him for dear life, closing her eyes as awareness overwhelms her and the fissures start to become more and more prominent.

Passion is visceral… it comes easily, without pretense or complication. It doesn't try to understand or make sense of situations, simply acts to alleviate them.

Its truth and no logic. Completely irrational and yet the most normal and sane thing they can do right now.

"Look at me…" He's saying to her now, asking her to open her eyes, his hands cupping her face. His expression is everything Peter as he claims her mouth in a kiss, pushing into her with resolve.

"I love you..." He tells her making her immediately freeze, retreat into her catatonia, turn her face away from his.

He brings his finger to her chin and pulls her back to meet his gaze, daring her to look away again, thrusting once again into her with determination.

She's close… too close to coming apart, to being undone.

"I love you Olivia" He tells her forcefully as a silent orgasm overtakes her body, her face arches backwards as she rides the sensation, her inside walls quivering as he follows her into the abyss soon after, holding her tightly.

She's imploding unto herself, shrapnel flying in projectile motion all round them, pointy and jagged pieces of her being falling haphazardly. She's dying a thousand deaths and suddenly everything… her very existence is pain.

A harsh, wretched sob escapes her lips as the vestiges of her high fade away. She's trembling, a mass of quavering limbs and flesh as the tears come unbidden.

He rolls away from her slightly and then pulls her shaking form in his embrace like he had that first night they had spent together, pulling up a discarded sheet from the floor to cover them.

"It's okay… just let it go." He tells her as she grapples with everything. "Just let it go Liv."

And she does… she lets herself feel, even if feelings are like pincers at her heart. They're jumpstarting her, resuscitating her from her stupor.

The fog has been lifted, darkness replaced with a blinding light and even if it hurts her eyes, she can't look away anymore.

* * *

"Peter…" she finally chokes finding her voice for the first time in twenty tears and change.

She says his name desperately, turning to face him and look at him… actually look at him now with complete awareness. His eyes mirror her agony, relay her every torment.

Everything is so ruined… so irreparably damaged. What could they possibly fight for? They had nothing left.

"It's going to be fine sweetheart. It'll get better I promise." He says to her understanding her anguish, his hands coming to rest on her cheek.

"How can you say that? She asks him incredulously.

"We're here still here aren't we?" He gives her a small smile. "We have each other… and we have our family."

She nods in understanding and then looks at him perplexed, slightly pained because she realizes she doesn't. "Family?"

Their family was gone, destroyed by circumstances beyond them like everything else. Why would he say that, be so cruel and remind her of all that.

And he's smiling at her… like she hasn't seen him smile in forever.

"Family…Liv. We have our family back. We have our daughter back." He tells her, his face literally glowing with happiness.

And Olivia heart skips a beat as she realizes what he's saying… what he was implying.

"She's…Etta's here?" She struggles to breathe; trying to jog her brains though the fog of the last few hours.

The faint voices of someone calling him dad. She hadn't imagined it. Hadn't imagined the pair of blue eyes that weren't Peter's looking at her with wonderment. Hadn't imagined the feeling of someone getting into her head for just a second before she had fainted… like only her daughter had ever been able to.

He nods and she almost feels herself explode all over again.

Except it's not just pain this time, there's something more… a faint imitation, a placeholder for happiness, for hope.

"She's right here… and she's grown up to be every bit as amazing as we'd known she would be." He's telling her, his eyes assuming bewilderment, like he still couldn't believe it himself.

She nods dumbstruck for several minutes, willing her heart to still, to take his words for what they were… the only salvation that was theirs in this world to which they had lost everything.

"Do you think... would it be okay…" She hesitates with the words, bringing her palms to his chest to feel the warmth of his skin, not sure if she can ask the question. The realization that had caused a ripple of joy in her is already spinning a web of fears over her chest. "Do you think she'll want to see me?"

And when he smirks and shaking his head at her, Olivia knows all is right with this world. Because that smirk was like everything else about him, a sign of better things to come.

"I think she'd like that very much." He tells her

And she smiles a little herself, using facial muscles that she hasn't used in some time.

"Though… I think you might want to put on some clothes first. It might be twenty years, but I am fairly certain she doesn't want to see _that_ much of you." He points out to her.

She rolls her eyes at him. "What is she like?" She asks then curiously, feeling herself relax for the first time in very very long.

The pride in his face is all too telling, his eyes softening imperceptibly and she feels enveloped by the warmth of it all. "She's perfect Liv, absolutely perfect and she's so beautiful, you're going to never want to stop looking at her once you lay eyes on her. She's brilliant and brave and every bit the deviant hellion that you'd predicted she'd be."

"So you're saying she takes after her father?" She asks, unable to help the smile pulling at her lips, sinking into the feeling of being something more than a soldier on a mission.

To be a mother to her daughter once again.

He laughs and then looks at her, nodding... "In too many ways for my comfort. But her heart is all you Liv…It's always been." There's something akin to gratitude and a startling intensity in his expression, pulling her closer into his embrace and she thinks he's going to say something that will push her over the edge and make her cry all over again.

"You know sweetheart… I think the best thing I ever did with my life was to knock you up." He tells her with a self-assured grin then and she can't help the unhindered laughter that escapes her, her insides tickled relentlessly by that remark.

She thinks she can take on a fucking fire breathing dragon in a back alley if he could supply her with a lifetime of this, make her laugh in way that only he can.

"I do think that was one of your finer moments…even if took little effort on your part." She pats his chest agreeably, not to be outdone. She has been his partner for too long, on and off the field to not offer a suitable comeback.

Something occurs to her then… something that her logical and rational parts of the brain are realizing just then, something that is all too overwhelming a prospect right now.

"Peter… we…" She looks at him slightly chagrined knowing how ridiculous it was to be thinking about things like this right now. "We didn't use any protection…." She mumbles chewing her thumb with contemplation, averting her gaze slightly, not understanding the shyness that was overcoming her.

He was her husband for crying out loud, the father of her child, a child who was a young woman now… and here she was acting like they were guilty teenagers who hadn't listened carefully enough in sex-ed class.

But anticipating consequences has always been part of who she was and that didn't change no matter what, or when.

Predictably he laughs, throwing his head back for effect. "That's what you're worried about right now, seriously?" He looks at her with amused disbelief. "Sweetheart look around… we're in a safe house. I am pretty sure they don't stock condoms next to the ammunition and the food supplies. And seeing as Etta's the only one who knows her way around the place, I sure as hell am not asking her for clarification."

"Maybe we shouldn't have risked this…not with everything going on. Peter what if something happens. What if I…" She doesn't say it, letting the suggestion linger, but her head is already miles ahead of her heart…

"Hey… it's okay." He's telling her gently, running his hand on her shoulder in a soothing motion. "Calm down… you're going way overboard and we have bigger things to worry about right now."

"Precisely… we don't need to add to the list." She tells him shaking her head. "In case you didn't notice, the world outside is all but falling apart."

"And how is that different from the last time exactly ….or the time before that?" He asks her with a smile and then tells her gently. "Liv… it'll be fine. We were on two different forms of very effective birth control and we still ended up pregnant and just like that happened in spite of us being careful, this may not happen even if we weren't. All I know is things like this will happen if they're supposed to, no matter how inconvenient it is to saving the world."

"I thought you didn't believe in fate… whatever happened to the eternal rationalist, to the man who always looked for reason?" She asks him with a teasing smile.

"He's seen enough to know that sometimes…. things happen despite reason and not because of it." He tells her. "Like tonight…here we are, insurgents in a place where danger is everywhere, on the run, in hiding from men who can get into our heads and kill us without a single weapon… hell there's a war going on outside Liv and all I wanted to do was make love to you. More than anything…"

"Those are some messed up priorities Bishop." She tells him with mock disapproval but knowing how he feels.

Because she feels the same way.

He snorts. "Hardly… In fact I think for the first time in very long, I have my priorities right." He's looking up at ceiling right now. "Twenty years of being stuck in amber will do that you know. Make you realize that you can't keep making sacrifices of the important things in your life to serve some greater good, in the distant hope that you'll have them back someday."

"But we have each other back don't we?" She asks him, not liking the way his eyes have dulled just a bit. She takes his hand to her lips, pressing kisses to his finger when she remembers something. Letting go of his hand she reaches over to the floor, to pick up her discarded jeans, feeling in her back pocket for the precious possessions she'd hid in there, years ago.

He's surprised when he feels a familiar circular weight slip onto his finger and when he looks at his fingers intertwined in hers, he sees the glint of silver that he's missed having on his hand for much too long.

He smiles at her in a wordless thank you. He's needed this back more than he'd care to admit; it was his totem, his tether to her and everything wonderful that came with her. His long standing aversion to the tradition and institution of marriage had never taken anything away from how he felt when she had put it on him the first time, her eyes speaking of a promise that he knew she would fulfill till the end of time.

To be by his side always...

And he's going to hold her to it.

With them somehow the institution had never felt like a hypocrisy, a duplicitous label acquired for social acceptance, a trite ritual with its often nonsensical conventions.

They were already wed in every sense of the word long before there was a ceremony.

"Where's yours?" He asks her, getting his response as she holds up her own smaller ring in her hands.

"May I?" He asks, taking it from her, and then holding her hand as he slides it onto her finger. "Do you remember our wedding day?" He asks, wanting to think of something happier, something to take his mind off of everything, as he clasps her hand and brings it to his lips to kiss her folded knuckles.

"We didn't have a wedding…" She reminds him. "Not really…" She may not be a romantic woman or a stickler for tradition, but even she knew that their five minute event in front of the judge did not constitute a proper wedding. The one they had finally made time for after cancelling their appointment at city hall twice because of cases they were working on.

Nina had absolutely forbid Olivia from doing it a third time.

"Well let's see…. there was me in a tux and you in a white dress and our friends and family and champagne and strawberries and cake…."

"That we bought from the store on our way home…" She interrupts him.

"And music we danced to…"

"In the living room to the record player…"

"I even played the piano for you that night."

"You played for me every night…"

"I think all that qualifies as a wedding." He tells her like he hasn't heard any of her interjecting caveats. "A truly spectacular one at that."

"Sure let's go with that." She smiles. "Except you forget the part where we stayed up all night taking care of a seven month old baby. Etta was running a fever that night remember?"

"That's the first time she'd ever been sick…" He nods recalling the way he had panicked, ready to drive to the emergency room or barge into the ICU or do something equally drastic. "And I was completely useless of course and you were the voice of reason."

"As always." She teases.

"Some wedding night huh?" He chuckles. "I never even took you on a honeymoon."

"We didn't exactly have time for things like that." Olivia points out.

"We should have made time… especially for things like that." He remarks, smiling a little sadly. "We were always too busy… always working to make sure everybody else got to live their lives to live our own. And now look at us..."

"Yeah look at us." She places their intertwined hands against his chest. "We should have been old and greying and pretty much sick of each other. You'd probably be going through a mid-life crisis right about now."

"The kind where I buy a sports car and be pathetic and try and act like I was twenty five again?" He cocks an eyebrow at her.

"That kind…" She nods. "And I'd probably have taken to drinking all the time."

"You say that like you weren't doing that before." He says sardonically, promptly earning himself a light smack on the chest.

"Anyway..." She gives him a meaningful look, turning on her side. "We should have been somewhere else in our lives altogether, moved along with the years. Except we didn't and we're here now and we have all the time in the world."

"If we don't get ourselves killed that is…" He grins and then immediately regrets it when he sees the sadness in her eyes at his statement, so he turns a lighter vein. "You know you're right. Scratch that. I am a lucky bastard, twenty five years of marriage and my wife is still as hot and young as the day I met her."

"We're not all that young honey. We weren't even really young when we met." She chuckles.

"Speak for yourself Dunham." He says scoffing at her. "I happen to think otherwise."

"That's because inside you're really just an immature fifteen year old boy." She says fondly, stroking his chin, loving the feel of his stubble against his fingers. "One who's not familiar with the concept of a razor, I might add."

"Unlike most fifteen year old boys, I didn't have my father around to teach me how to shave." He tells her with no real malice. "He was a little busy being locked up in a mental institution to educate me on proper grooming."

"Well let's chalk that up to an unintended but good happenstance then. Because I don't think I could ever be attracted to you if you were clean shaven." She plants a kiss along his cheek to make her point.

"Of all my exceptional qualities, my facial hair is what keeps you interested in me? You're so shallow." He mocks her.

"And you're so you." She shakes her head, moving on top of him, and then smiles. "I love you for that." She kisses him, leaning into his mouth for several long moments, nibbling at his bottom lip before letting go.

"Sweetheart, if you keep this up, we'll never get around to saving the world." He tells her breathlessly.

"Who cares about the stupid world?" She shrugs.

"You almost say that like you believe it." He says, bringing his hand to brush away locks of her hair, before pulling her down for another kiss.

Olivia closes her eyes as he deepens the kiss, his tongue probing hers. The familiar heat is rising in her body already. The one that had broken her out of the ice in the first place.

She's more than ready to be transported again, to repeat that journey with him and be more than just a passive tag along this time.

But a knocking on the door shakes her out of the haze.

"Dad…its me." She hears a cautious voice coming through the door and Olivia is taken aback by how loud her heart starts beating when she realizes who it belongs to.

Peter meets her eyes briefly before extricating himself from her hold, sitting up. He even has a smile on his face. "Umm yeah… honey. What is it?" He asks.

"It's…we have to be ready to leave here in an hour." She's telling them or him rather.

"Yeah, we'll be down in ten minutes alright sweetheart." He's telling her.

"Okay." Olivia can hear the sound of footsteps fading away.

"She still has the worst timing ever." Her husband is grinning good naturedly as he rolls out of the bed and begins to gather his clothes.

"Liv… you heard her. We have to get going honey." He's telling her, laying a hand gently on her shoulder. When he doesn't get any response he sits down in front of her, understanding everything without her having to tell him.

"I know you're scared of facing her." He tells her, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

"I am not scared…" She lies, just to save a little bit of her pride, but he sees through it anyway.

"If you weren't, you'd have bolted out of this bed to find her the moment I told you about her." He says knowingly.

"I am just…. Peter I don't know if I can do this." She feels so ashamed of herself in that instant.

"Yes you can." He tells her gently but with certainty. "Of all the crazy and impossible things that you've been asked to do, this is nothing."

"But what if she hates me?" She can't help ask. "She has every reason to…"

"But she doesn't." He squeezes her hand. "You have to know she doesn't."

"Do I really?" She shakes her head. "I don't know her, I don't anything about her. What's she's done or how she's lived all these years..."

"You could always ask her." He says, like it's that simple. "And she's still the same person inside. You know her better than anyone else. You always have."

"You're the one she always came to with everything." She tells him shaking her head. "She told you everything."

"She would have told you everything too, except that she never needed to. You already knew." He points out and then places his hands on her cheeks.

Olivia nods and doesn't say anything.

She feels once again like she did when she'd found out she was pregnant. That conflicted sense of fear and the anticipation rolled into one hot mess.

Some part of her is convinced she should just stay away, she's done enough damage by abandoning her daughter.

But the other part of her wants more than anything to see her and hold her….if she'll be allowed to of course.

She looks at him, trying to find the words to tell him how confused she is about the situation. But his next words clear up any doubts she might have had.

"Liv you're her mother. She's been waiting for you all her life. She needs you."

_She needs me. _Olivia thinks to herself.

"I should go to her." She tells him then, firmly. She's out of the bed in the next instant, picking up her discarded clothes. She's pulling her jeans on when she catches Peter looking at her with an odd smile.

"What?" She asks puzzled by the expression on his face.

"It's good to see you again, Olivia Dunham." He tells her.

She laughs.

Some things never really did change.

"It's good to see you too." She tells him because its the truth.


End file.
